I moved in here my senior year at UMass along with my girlfriend and her friend into a two bedroom townhouse. We had checked around at other apartments (Cliffside, Alpine Commons, Sugarloaf) and were just stunned when we toured the townhouse - this place is probably near double the square footage of those other places, and costs less!
I would have to say that is the biggest benefit - the huge amount of space you have in a townhouse, nearly 1100 square feet. It's a whole different world to have two floors, especially when you're sharing the apartment with roomates. Someone can be watching TV loudly downstairs and you won't have to be bothered by it. Plus the only people you have to complain about making noise upstairs are your own roomates.
The landlord, Ladonna, is probably the best landlord I will ever have. She's extremely friendly, helpful, and is on site in the office Mon-Fri. We even had our rent late a few times and she wasn't too bothered. The maintence guys, Andy and ('), rock. Andy especially is very friendly and they will often fix problems the very same day you file a report. They even changed our lightbulbs!
The apartment overall was in good condition. It's definitely not as nice as some of the other aparment complexes, but it's still beyond acceptable. We had two problems, the first was the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, which was broken and rusted. Unfortunately it took them two months to get a new one. Secondly, the hot water (which is paid for) really sucked the first semester. Sometimes there was just no hot water available, but even worse the shower would jump from scalding to freezing cold at least 5 times per shower. Luckily the hot water heaters were all replaced and this is no longer a problem.
There is definitely enough room for parking. If you get there late you can't park in front of your place, but it's only about a 20 second walk if you have to park further away. There is also no charge for a parking permit, unlike some of the other apartment complexes around here.
I'm very picky when it comes to noise, and it hasn't been much of a problem here. We haven't been bothered once by noise through the walls, in fact, though I'm not sure if that's because we have quiet neighbors or the walls are pretty solid.
The biggest noise problem we had was with people outside. Like most apartments with college kids, there are often obnoxious, disrespectful people outside talking on their cell phones or just chatting loudly with their friends at 1,2,3,4 in the morning. The people next door to us got home at 1:20AM every Thurs, Fri, and Saturday from a bar and woke us up every time. We asked them to keep it quiet but they didn't bother. Also, due to the way certain parts of the complex are designed (a horshoe type layout), you can hear people who are outside that are in completely different buildings than you.
However, even though low noise is a really big priority for me, I would still recommend Squire. You can just cross your fingers and hope to get quiet neighbors.
Squire Village, and Sunderland in general, is probably the safest place I have ever lived in. People even leave their cars with the windows open overnight. There was one incident where someone stole license plates and car emblems, but that was some random prank of some sort.
The location of Squire Village is pretty good. It is literally a minutes walk to a small shopping center with Frontier Pizza (great food), Java Hut Cafe, a liquour store, and a 7-11. You're also a minutes drive from an ice cream place and Subway.
The drive to town, campus, and Rt. 9 (Hampshire Mall) can get pretty repetitive though, and is definitely an inconvenience if, due to your schedule, you have to travel back and forth more than a few times a day. You are right next to a bus stop, which is nice. But I would often envy my friends who lived south of UMass, since they were so much closer to Amherst, Rt 9, and the like.
We lived in an apartment which faced a potato field. During Spring-Fall, it's a beautiful view, especially from the slider window. During winter it becomes a sprawling pile of dirt, but at least you aren't looking out at a parking lot.
However, this field is also my main complain with Squire Village. During the summer I worked from home, and had to endure the tractors which sprayed the field. At least twice an hour, billowing fumes would flow through the entire apartment. I had to run to all the windows and shut them, which is quite a chore to do once every half hour. During the first month of summer I developed a mucus related problem in my throat because of the damn pollution the tractors gave off. This is a problem I would have never even considered.
I never approached the landlord about this because I assumed nothing could be done. So if you choose an apartment near the potato field, realize that if you're here during the summer you will be blackening your lungs quite a bit.
To leave off on a positive note, I strongly recommend Squire Village. The office and maintence staff is the best you could ask for and they have huge apartments.
We paid $810 for a lease of a 2bdr Townhouse starting 09/01/03. Our average electricity bill was $80 ($45 during the summer [we didn't use AC], $120 during the winter [electric heat is VERY expensive!]). For what it's worth, Verizon cell phone service works fine here. Comcast supplies very reliable and speedy cable internet.
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